


Show Me What I'm Looking For

by amberwoods



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Blind AU, F/M, Modern AU, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwoods/pseuds/amberwoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gray is having the worst day ever when he decides to bitch at the pretty girl that's staring at him. After looking like an idiot when he finds out that she's actually blind, he finds that the meeting might just turn his day around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me What I'm Looking For

“What the hell are you looking at?”

Normally, he wouldn’t have lashed out at a stranger like that. If he saw someone staring at him he’d just look away and ignore it. People weren’t worth the trouble anyway. Today, however, had been one big pile of crap, and this girl (who was staring at him like he was some kind of rare animal) was just one inch away of getting severely bitched at.

The girl, however, just smiled, her bright blue eyes not leaving him. “Me?” she asked. Her voice was soft, but clear.

“Do you see anyone else staring me down like I’m their deceased grandfather?” he growled at her.

“Actually, I don’t see anything,” she answered him calmly, “I’m blind. I’m sorry if I was staring at you, I didn’t notice.”

That baffled him and he was quiet for a moment. “You’re blind?” he then repeated, his voice unfazed but his eyes confused.

The girl nodded. “Very much so, yes. So I’m sorry.”

Again, it took him a moment before he replied. “It’s alright. You can’t help it.”

She nodded again, this time as a gesture of good-will, he thought, and turned her head so she wasn’t looking at him anymore.

The both of them were sitting underneath an old weeping willow near a small pond. Three benches had been put in a sort of incomplete square, with one side missing. It was Gray’s favourite place to go when he was having a rough day. He came there to relax, to calm down, to feel a little better again. He wasn’t used to other people being there for longer than ten minutes. Maybe that was part of why he snapped at this girl. It felt like she was invading a place that was his.

He was the one staring at her, now. She was a pretty girl, he supposed. She had long, blue curls and porcelain skin. For some reason, he wondered why she was sitting there. He knew why _he_ always came here – to think. So why was she here? What was this place to her? He’d never seen her here before.

The wind increased for a bit. Gray could see it rippling the water. When he looked back at the girl, she was smiling.

“Why are you smiling?”

He didn’t know why he’d asked. He hadn’t wanted to. Not really.

The girl turned his face towards him again. He could see it now. Her eyes, even though they were a normal light blue, weren’t looking at him. Not really. “Why aren’t you?”

“How do you know whether I’m smiling?”

Her smile widened just a little. As if she liked the question. “I can hear it.”

“You can hear whether I’m smiling?” He couldn’t help but sound a little sceptical.

She laughed softly, raising up a hand slightly for seemingly no purpose at all. It distracted him for a moment, but then he looked at her face again. “Can’t you?” she asked, “When you’re on the phone, for example? Or from someone’s intonation?”

He thought about that for a second. “I guess,” he then admitted.

“Well,” she smiled, “I happen to have particularly good hearing.”

“I can imagine.”

“Now you’re smiling,” she said softly.

He was, he realised. That was a first for today. “Very good hearing indeed,” he told her.

She shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head lightly. “What can I say?” she said contently. 

He took her in for another moment. She was strange. “What’s your name?” he then asked.

“Juvia,” she said.

“I’m Gray.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Gray.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” He frowned. “I mean, wait, that came out wrong, I mean: it’s kind of a weird time of the day to be sitting near a pond, isn’t it?”

It was right in the middle of the day, just after two o’clock, on a Monday. Normally people would be working right now, wouldn’t they?

“Don’t _you_ have somewhere to be?” she shot back the question. The bluenette was sounding awfully amused.

“I’m a bartender,” he said, “I work night-shifts.”

“Well, I’m the owner of a café,” she smiled, “I have Mondays off.”

“A café?”

“Yes, maybe you’ve heard of it? Droplet Café, at Brook’s Square.”

“Never been there.”

There were two parks between Brook’s Square and the park they were in now. Why had she come here? Did she live nearby? It was a good neighbourhood. She seemed like the kind of person who’d be living there. She was dressed neatly, all in blue; a long skirt, a dark blue trench coat. She must really like the colour. Yet how could she? She was blind.

“Where’s your bar?” she asked him.

“Up North-East,” he said, “It’s a club, ICE MAX.”

“I’ve been there once or twice,” she said with a nod.

He arched an eyebrow. “You have?”

She laughed. “I like to dance.”

He grinned. “Are you a good dancer?”

The girl lifted up one of her hands and giggled behind it. The wrinkles around her eyes were absurdly adorable. “I’ve been told,” she answered him in that amused tone of hers, “Although it seems I haven’t caught your attention yet.”

He smiled. “I must have been off work.”

That brought a light blush to her face and, somehow, Gray could just feel his mood lifting. This conversation was doing him a lot of good. There was something about this girl that calmed him down.

“So why are you here?” she asked him.

He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I was having a bad day. I came here to calm down.”

Her eyebrows squeezed into a tiny, worried frown. “What happened?”

He chuckled, strangely contented by her worry. “The usual. I had a nightmare, fell out of bed, hit my head against a lamp, burned my breakfast, my neighbour was playing his goddamn trash music again so I could concentrate on my book and then my WIFI-connection gave out on me.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you often have nightmares?” she then asked.

Really? That’s what she got from it? “Yeah. Regularly.”

She smiled sadly and put a tress of her blue hair behind her ear. “I know that feeling,” she said softly.

“You too?” he asked carefully. She looked so vulnerable right then.

The girl nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I have those a lot.”

“How bad are they?” he asked.

She looked up at his face and smiled. “Pretty bad. Though not in the usual sense, I suppose. No horror or anything. Just…”

He got up, walked over to her and sat down again next to her. She seemed to have heard him, because she adjusted the way she was looking at. “Just what?” he asked.

The girl sighed and put both her hands on her lap. She entwined her fingers and turned her face to the sky. “I’m followed by rain,” she then said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” She smiled sadly again. “Everywhere I go, it’s raining. Like there’s an eternal raincloud following me around. People hate me for it in my dreams. Start to avoid me.”

He looked up at the sky as well. “In mine,” he said, “Anything I touch turns to ice. And if it’s people I care about, I only need to look at them and they’re frozen.”

“That’s awful,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well, yours sound pretty bad too.”

It was strange to find someone that understood what he was talking about. He’d been struggling with nightmares since he was eight, but he’d never met anyone that really got it. She did. He knew she did.

“Where do you think they come from?” she asked, sounding a little absent-minded.

“Deeply rooted fears, probably,” he told her with a sigh.

She smiled. “Yes, that’s probably it.”

“So what are you afraid of?”

She chuckled softly. “You’re pretty straight-forward, aren’t you, Gray?”

“Yes.”

“I think… I’m probably just afraid to be alone. Blind girls are no fun, you know.”

“I think you’re pretty fun,” he said casually.

She turned her head to him in surprise. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t.”

She fidgeted with her hands a little. “Well, people always think it’s kind of interesting, you know. A blind girl. But not in a fun way. Just a… an interesting way.”

He smiled. “I think you’re pretty fun with or without your blindness.”

Another light blush ran over her cheeks and she looked at him with strange wonder, her lips slightly parted and her blue eyes seeing nothing. For some reason, he blushed as well – thank God she couldn’t see it.

“If you think I’m fun,” she eventually stammered, “Would you like to get some coffee sometime?”

He blinked and then laughed. “You’re pretty straight-forward yourself!”

Her blush deepened and she fidgeted with her skirt again. “Well, you’re nice,” she said, “You’re…” She smiled again. “Fun.”

Gray looked at her again. This day had done a real 180 in terms of goodness.

“Sure,” he said, “I’d love to.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Modern fluff! Now they can support each other emotionally and be happy. Thanks for reading!


End file.
